The One Thing You Can't Do on the Family Computer

There's only one urgent reason you need to fix your own laptop.

Last time I returned home I didn't bring my own computer, so much of my day was wasted waiting for the family PC to open up so I could start doing important everyday things like checking email, buying stuff from eBay, and wasting time on Facebook.

Unfortunately, one of my laptop problems greatly affected me: my "ZXCY" keys wouldn't work, and neither would Control, Function, that Windows thing, or Alt. This stuff makes typing incredibly annoying, and damn near impossible. So I figured I'd do what I'd done all through grad school when a problem arose: I'd get WAM to fix it. We made a plan and I drove all the way to Boulder to see him.

As a reward, I planned on giving him the cool-looking silver Casio calculator watch I bought myself for my birthday. I still think it's cool-looking, but the metal band pulls my arm hair out, and that hurts. I figured since WAM is mostly bald in terms of body hair, he would be thrilled for this gift.

During my commute, I imagined myself with a fully functioning laptop, writing stories, emailing relatively funny photos to colleagues, and updating my Facebook status. All from my own computer.

I showed up to WAM's and knocked on the door. I waited and waited. I knocked again. WAM opened his door and smiled. "How's it going?" I asked. He just smiled, then laughed.

I figured if WAM was high, he'd still be better at fixing computers than me. But when I sat in with him, I noticed he could barely keep his eyes open, let alone repair my keyboard.

I sighed and ended up leaving them. I felt pretty pissed off that WAM would screw up our plans. We'd barely hung out together at all in the first place, and when I finally prepared for some old roommate time, he had smoked himself to the roof. I wanted to be mad, but instead I just decided to hang out with other friends.

When I returned home the next day, I found that I still couldn't use "ZXCY," which made typing and such difficult, but I realized that as long as I didn't look up Zexy Zebra, XXXena, Cassandra "Colossal" Cans, or Voluptuous Vulva, I could still use my computer for the only reason I thought I needed a repair: surfing porn in private.